


Love is a Battlefield

by webcricket



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 21:26:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webcricket/pseuds/webcricket
Summary: Castiel is nervous about his first kiss with the reader and tries to prepare in the best way he knows how. Dean helps him out with typical Dean methodology - unrelated classic rock references. Light humor. Cas typical self-doubt. Patient reader. One, two, three, four, I declare a fluff war.





	Love is a Battlefield

Strawberry lip balm, check. Not many flavors to choose from at the _gas-n-sip_ up the road where he also purchased the dainty corsage of azure delphiniums and bright yellow daisies currently adorning your left wrist, but he remembers how much you love the sweet taste of berries and there is no chance you or anyone else will be accusing the angel of possessing chapped lips on this particular evening. Minty fresh mouth wash, check. At least he assumes it was supposed to be mint flavor because of the artificial hue of the green dye – it coolly tickled his vessel’s taste buds and throat the same way all molecules do. If he’d bothered to skim the label, he would have known to swish and spit, not swallow the entire bottle. He thinks, perhaps, this is the source of the strange fluttering afflicting his vessel’s stomach. Soft shaven skin, check. Well, check as of four hours ago. He rubs a clammy palm over his face and neck – shadows of hair already prickling through the once smooth skin. He used to believe he didn’t sweat under any circumstances – turns out he was wrong. Staring down his nose into your expectantly gleaming eyes, there’s nothing he can do about the scruff at present.

You clear your throat, raking your lower lip enticingly through your teeth as you dig a toe impatiently into the rust-stained cement pad where you stand before the bunker’s door – returned and dallying at the threshold in the cool evening air after your first official date with Castiel. In typical Cas-fashion, he insisted on the over-the-top romantic gesture of a candlelit dinner to mark this new stage of your relationship. The new stage being acknowledgement of and action taken upon the mutual feelings you for some, in retrospect, silly reason hid from one another pretty much since the day you met. Standing there in the moonlight, you’ve given the angel all the go ahead signals to kiss you. Your body is pivoted and open, hips arching toward him. Your rapt attention flits intermittently from his perfectly bowed lips to his celestial blues as he prattles on about some such constellation or other. Fingers flirt with the knot of his black bowtie – donned specifically for the occasion – and trail to suggestively pluck at the pearlescent buttons of his crisp white shirt.

He knows _what_ he is supposed to do. What is expected. What’s more, he _wants_ to do it – to kiss you. To cross that narrow but infinite expanse of space distancing his celestial self from your soul. To feel the warmth of your lips ply and swell beneath his. To know if your taste is as pleasing and intoxicating to his senses as your heated scent. To quench his thirst on the wellspring of love of which he has so often hoped your soul harbors. He wants to kiss you more than anything.

_“Dean, may I ask you something?” Castiel doesn’t bother to knock, speaking as he pushes Dean’s bedroom door open and invites himself in._

_Dean scowls from his position reclining against the headboard in bed, looking up from the book of lore he’s pretending to study. The tome is precisely proportioned to conceal the skin magazine he’s actually scrutinizing. Judging the solemnity of his friend’s expression, he sighs and snaps shut the book, haphazardly tossing it aside, completely missing the nightstand at which he aimed. The text spills open, revealing the revealing contents._

_Cas spies the glossy centerfold. “Is this a bad time? I can come back la-”_

_“No, shoot,” Dean mutters, swigging a sip of beer and sitting up straighter._

_“As you know, my date with Y/N is tonight.”_

_“Oh, is that tonight?” Dean snorts and smirks, washing his dripping sarcasm down with another gulp of beer – the angel has talked about little else all week. At this point, Dean knows the plan in excruciating detail._

_“Yes,” Cas answers flatly, gaze subtly squinting. “I told you-”_

_“Just, don’t. Nevermind.” Dean holds up a quieting palm. Someday the angel will learn to differentiate sarcasm from sincerity. Today is not the day. “Ask your question.”_

_“I could ask Sam.”_

_“Ask,” Dean repeats in a growl and subdues the desire to roll his eyes. A part of him thinks it’s kind of adorable how serious Cas is taking his preparations for your date. He’s willing to humor him._

_Cas glances backward into the hall to ensure they are alone and steps further into the room. Jaw ruminating over his unspoken query, he stares at his feet and wrings his hands before spitting the words out. “How does a goodnight kiss work?”_

_“Well, if you’re lucky, it works to guarantee a good morning kiss, too.”_

_Dean’s attempt at wit is lost on the angel. He reformulates the inquiry, “I mean, how do I do it correctly? Kissing someone I love? What are the mechanics?”_

_“Mechanics?” A pang of sympathy for you seizes Dean. “What are you, a freaking robot?” Remembering who he’s dealing with, he preemptively holds up his palm again for fear the angel will try to answer. “You’re a soldier, right? Love is battlefield. Kissing is a like a formal declaration of war.” Dean thinks Pat Benatar would be proud of the metaphor._

_Cas nods. Battlefields are something he can intuitively navigate._

_“Okay, you’ve got your tactical arsenal to wield. Hands, lips, tongue-”_

_“Teeth?” Cas interrupts to suggest._

_“No man, not teeth!” Dean scoffs, then reconsiders, green eyes glinting. “Well, you know, not unless she’s into it.”_

_“How will I know if she’s into it?”_

_“Oh, you’ll know.” Dean winks._

_Cas isn’t convinced he’ll know. “What about using my grace?”_

_“Uh, yeah, sure, I guess.” Dean isn’t sure how or where angelic grace fits into the anatomy of a kiss, but he figures unless Y/N is secretly a demon, it won’t hurt. He goes on, “Anyway, kissing is basically meeting in the middle of the fracas. You gotta play offence and defense at the same time. Give and take strategy.”_

_Cas bobs his head as he tries and fails to comprehend the meaning of what Dean is saying._

_“And don’t forget to tease. You want the confrontation to be a long drawn out skirmish leaving you both wanting more.”_

_“This mêlée as you call it,” Cas asks, countenance furrowed in earnestness, “it’s fought to what end?” Hands and lips and tongue battling for dominance yet ceding to the enemy at the same time. It doesn’t make sense to him. Who wins? Who loses?_

_“To what end?” Dean silently mouths the words, arching an askance is-he-freaking-serious brow to the unsympathetic gun and knife-lined walls of the rooms. The inanimate weapons inform him his conscience is clear. He tried. Exhaling a heavy sigh, he throws his arms up in the air in a show of defeat. “Did you, uh, try a Websummon search?”_

_Cas frowns, recollecting the 68 plus million results the web search yielded and the dauntingly dissenting advice offered on the first thousand or so pages he managed to read during the previous night while everyone slept. “Thank you, Dean. Perhaps I’ll try that,” he murmurs, shoulders dropping as he turns to exit._

_“Good luck, buddy,” Dean bellows after him._

Dean was right. Standing so close to you, the way his vessel’s heart is pounding, the surge of grace-like adrenaline coursing through his trembling limbs, it’s very like the anticipation experienced on the frontline preceding the charge and tumult of an epic battle. Yet there is something foreign, too. It’s thrashing wild and unfamiliar and electric – not in his bodily ribcage, but rather, within his divine being itself. It’s threatening to tear him apart in a vie for freedom. Fists clenching, his already star-reflective eyes begin to glow a faint blue as he uses his grace to attempt to suppress whatever it is even though part of him wants to set it free.

“Castiel, hey,” your voice is gentle as you thread your fingers through the hair curling at the nape of his neck, pulling his forehead down to rest against yours, “relax angel. It’s only me.”

He closes his eyes, breathing in the exhaled honeyed breath of your reassurance. _Only you_ – only the one being in all of creation of whose devotion he believes he is wholly undeserving. Surely he is not enough and can never be enough to make you happy – a fallen angel. Fallen, and broken and doomed. Doomed to fail those he loves again and again. This date with you, this hope he has allowed himself to nurture, the promise of what a kiss might mean for the future – there is nothing he could have done to prepare himself for the crushing weight of it all.

“Let’s call it a night,” you offer him an escape. “This. Us. We can take it slow, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, lids flickering open to drown in the vast depths of your tender regard. “I-”

“Shh,” you shush. A small fond smile ghosts your aspect at his contrition – your angel, almost yours, ever the stoic, ready to fall on his sword with an apology. “It’s new for me too, this feeling.” You grasp his wrist, blushing as you bring his palm up to lay flat to your chest so that he can feel the eager race of your heart. You repeat for emphasis, “This feeling, the one here.”

He feels it – not only the frenetic whoosh of life beneath the flushed heat of your flesh, but the roar of excitement for the possibilities, the paralyzing fear of being unworthy, the joyous exaltation of love – he feels every doubt and hope just as you do. Realization dawns that he is not alone in this battle, not anymore. Together, maybe together, you will both be enough. He understands what Dean was trying to tell him now. Catching a finger beneath your chin, angling to nuzzle your cheek with his nose, he tilts your lips up to touch his and lays siege to your mouth with a kiss at once flowing and fierce – a declaration of war leaving you both wanting more.


End file.
